Just a quick NewsFlash! to say I’m still here, and now, so are your comments (back on this post) to which I hope to respond very soon.
A bit of technical background first. I have the commenting feature on my blogs set so that besides being posted here, all comments come to my email box. Yes, it can get cluttered, but I like to feel the rhythm of the comments arriving and I tend to keep them in my emailbox until I’ve answered them, as a reminder that you’re waiting for my reply. So I’d anticipated being able to follow the conversation about the poetry, saving up your thoughtful comments, thinking of my own response to those, and, finally, letting them go “live” and “public” on the blog.
But, it turns out, when I chose to set the Comments feature for Moderation, those comments didn’t get emailed to me, but stayed “behind the dashboard,” so to speak, on Blogger. Because, as I’ve just this morning realised, I didn’t have my email address entered on the requisite line in the Settings page.
I had been quite disappointed that no one accepted my challenge to comment on the Gernes poem I posted, but I told myself that didn’t necessarily mean the experiment was a failure. Perhaps some of you had read it, even if you weren’t inclined to comment. And I resolved to try again with another poem later, but perhaps attempt a different approach to conversation. At the very least, I told myself, I had put a poem out there, spread poetry’s visibility in a contemporary world that doesn’t make much room for it. Not a failure completely, I reassured myself.
And then this morning, Georgia asked ever-so-politely, in a comment on my other blog, if I was thinking of turning the comments back on over here. I knew she was hoping to read what others had said about the poem, and I thought, wryly, that she might share my disappointment in finding that no one had said anything.
Luckily, when Georgia asked when I was planning to make the Comments public, I figured it was time to turn off the Comments Moderation feature and went for a peek at that dashboard. I’m not sure you can imagine my delight and surprise to find a wealth of thoughtful comments that had been waiting patiently for me to find them. Chagrin as well, in spades. . . .
But I’m wiping the egg off my face, and gleefully posting all your lovely comments. And I’m turning Comments Moderation off, and sorting out some time for responding to your thoughts about the poem as soon as I can. Might not happen today as we’re hosting a family dinner here today to celebrate a Second Birthday. But as soon as I can.
Meanwhile, thank you so much. I should have known you’d never disappoint me.
I knew at least one someone had commented but thought you might not have had time to prepare your own comments on the poem. Hence the attempt at gentleness. 😉
Many happy returns to the just-turned two!
You were very gentle, thank you.
Same here. I thought you were just too busy. I loved reading the other comments and am looking forward to your replies.
I'll try to get something coherent together before too long. Aren't the comments great though?
I eventually figured out that I hadn't lost a comment and thought you were perhaps too busy. But I've done the same thing as well. What joy it must have been to find all the comments. What joy it was for me to see them rolling in yesterday.
It was such a joy, Mardel! I can't even tell you!